Leon Spinks Becomes a Somebody

Not since Pete Rademacher stepped into a ring with Floyd Patterson in 1957 has a heavyweight fought for the title with as little experience as Leon Spinks. Rademacher commuted to the canvas seven times that night, then left in search of an ice pack. Spinks left with the heavyweight crown and the sort of slum-to-stardom story that no savvy scriptwriter would ever dare submit to a director.

The eldest of seven children raised in a crumbling St. Louis housing project, Spinks took his first fight lessons from local street toughs, who dubbed him "Mess-over" (because he was easy to mess over) and mugged him for small change. Punches in fights eventually cost him two front teeth, causing the gap that has become his trademark. Spinks' parents separated some 13 years ago, and his mother taught Bible classes at home while keeping the impoverished family going with welfare money and maternal grit. His father once punished Leon by suspending him from a nail and administering a beating, and regularly assured his son--and anyone else who would listen--that he would "never amount to anything." Recalls Spinks: "That became my thing. To be somebody."

He began with boxing instruction at a neighborhood center and younger brother Michael as sparring partner. After dropping out of school in the tenth grade, he eventually joined the Marine Corps and its Camp Lejeune boxing squad. Despite a tendency to avoid training whenever possible, Spinks' brawling aggressiveness won him a spot on the 1976 U.S. Olympic team in Montreal. While Mom watched on a borrowed TV set in St. Louis, he and Michael, by then a fast-rising middleweight, became the first brothers to win gold medals in boxing simultaneously.

The exposure of his Olympic triumphs on TV proved to be more valuable to the elder Spinks than a good left hook. He got an early discharge from the Marines, moved to Philadelphia with his wife Nova and his stepdaughter, and quickly turned pro after signing up with Boxing Promoter Bob Arum. Hungering for fresh fighters, CBS aired six of his first seven bouts as a pro.

Spinks' early competition came straight from Palookaville. He easily dispatched his first opponent, a Brooklyn butcher named Lightning Bob Smith. Three first-round K.O.s followed, and in fight No. 5, Spinks' competitor withdrew at the last minute. A standin, signed just hours before the scheduled bout, left in a stupor after three rounds. By then, even Spinks' ho-hum matches against Journeyman Scott LeDoux and Italian Alfio Righetti could not dim his TV marketability.

Naturally modest and easygoing outside the ring, Spinks seemed overwhelmed by his victory. "I'm just thinking wow, man, it's great, it's great! Sometimes I just can't believe it," he gushed. "I'm the best young heavyweight, but I ain't the greatest. He was the greatest."

Confronted with admirers and new-found followers of his own, Spinks quickly retreated to a room rented under a different name in the Las Vegas Hilton. In the tumult of victory, all the new champion could think of was that he'd like to take a trip somewhere: "Maybe a cruise. Yeah, a cruise. I'd like to go to England."

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